| Fascination Surface |
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| Color Case Hardening and Suhler
Blueing Traditional Surface Treatments on Hunting and Sporting Guns.. It is well known that iron is not very resistible due to its natural softness and missing of surface protection. To prevent these bad features, all iron parts of the guns, except for the barrel, are treated to reach a higher level of carbon (steel) in the surface. In the manufacturing of guns, this treatment is made by case hardening. Animal charcoal, mainly leather charcoal is used as cementide powder – sometimes we also use charcoaled claws, horn, ivory, etc. The heating in the leather charcoal changes the iron surface to steel. By the very quick cooling, the steel becomes harder and also gets the special marble colours during the cooling process. Especially the beautiful marble colours of the case hardening have been a feature of the nicest finish of luxury guns in the last few years. Even for the best craftsmen it is impossible to make them as desired. So it is independent of the capacity or incapacity of the craftspeople themselves. That is why it is impossible to forecasting which gun will have more beautiful or more common colours. – But the longer and more detailed your experience is, the more you will be able to influence a quite little bit the appearance of the marble colours of the iron parts. Friedrich Brandeis 1881 back to beginning |